The Veterans Job Corps bill was held up in the Senate late Wednesday night after Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) filibustered to gain support for the release of a Pakistani doctor who helped locate Osama bin Laden.

The bill, which has bi-partisan support, would create a veterans jobs training program, costing $1 billion over five years.

“I think my friend from Kentucky should have run for Secretary of State rather than the Senate,” Reid said.

Republican senators were using the Veterans Job Corps Act, backed by President Barack Obama, to play party politics in an election year, Reid said repeating his often-stated assertion that Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) only goal is “to defeat President Obama.”

“Everything has stopped, everything,” Reid said. “We have been able to push through a few things but not many. Couldn’t we just agree on veterans?”

Obviously not. On one hand, there’s a jobs bill in the Senate that would create a job training program for veterans, at a cost of $5 billion over five years. In fact, it would help veterans and the communities they return to, by hiring veterans in to the civilian workforce as police officers and fire figthers. By the way, it doesn’t increase the deficit, and is entirely funded by collecting unpaid taxes from Medicare providers.

As veteran activist Paul Rieckhoff wrote earlier this summer, putting veterans to work is a smart investment.

For one, hiring veterans isn’t charity. It’s an investment and smart business. Veterans can help fill the huge skills gap in America that is hindering our recovery and undermining our global competitiveness. The Department of Defense spends millions and millions of dollars training our forces, and it is a lost investment if we don’t re-purpose those skills for the private sector. In President Obama’s own words, we have trained these folks to nation-build abroad. Now, we need them to nation-build here at home.

When World War II ended, America’s workforce, and the manufacturing sector in particular, was infused with millions of talented veterans, and our economy thrived. With over one million service members leaving active-duty over the next five years, we have another opportunity to steer veterans to growth sectors like energy, healthcare, transportation and infrastructure, where there are massive demands for skilled workers.

Given that this veteran’s jobs bill is small part of President Obama’s American Jobs Act, and that Senate and House Republicans have made it their sole purpose to deny the president second term, it’s no surprise that Senate Republicans would block this bill to help put our unemployed veterans back to work in their own communities.

About Terrance Heath

Terrance Heath is the Online Producer at Campaign for America's Future. He has consulted on blogging and social media consultant for a number of organizations and agencies. He is a prominent activist on LGBT and HIV/AIDS issues.